…writing long posts in other places makes you really forget to post in others. Curse you, blog!
Archives: July 2008
July 19, 2008
July 17, 2008
Wii Are The World
So out of E3, among many other marketing shills and other wow things meant to impress the media, there’s a little tidbit from Nintendo that says they have confirmed that WiiMusic, a music simulator, will come to homes this holiday season. WiiMusic was in the original lineup of games but was mysteriously missing from the library – until now.
Apparently with WiiMusic, all you have to do is mimic playing the instrument of choice with the Wiimote while pressing buttons. Unlike other games where you have to follow a rhythm or match notes, all you have to do is be enthusiastic and the music comes out golden, no matter what. This way, anyone can make music, even if they have the musical talent of a dying giraffe on drugs.
This stuff looks great. It won’t be long before we have people waving around their Wiimotes with musical glee – the same people who have problems playing Fisher-Price instruments and strumming in time with colored keys. Finally, the rhythm outcasts get their say, making Guitar Hero and Rock Band enthusiasts turn up their noses and getting actual musicians to see their living get taken down to yet another notch.
But musicians bashing their expensive violins aside, all this Wii stuff with making things realistic got me thinking. We’re really on the edge of something here. A place where Wiimotes take the place of swords and guns. A place where you can supposedly break your wrist snowboarding but somehow, not on a Wii Balance Board. It’s not Wii would like to play. It’s Wii would like to Stay.
Just imagine the possibilities:
WiiEat – Simulate the joy of eating, whether it’s stirring up a plate of spaghetti with the Wiimote or using the nunchuk to scoop up that last bit of pixellated pie. Have a good old fashioned food night by whipping the Wiimote like a crazed monkey at your friends. Best of all – don’t get fat, and in fact lose weight due to the fact that you’re neglecting actual eating for virtual eating. Everyone wins.
WiiWork – Get children oriented to the long, hard grind of reporting to the same job for 20 years and being stuck in the wonderful, perpetually dull Cubicleland. Slack off at your WiiWorkplace, make mistakes with your TPS reports, and use the Wiimote to perform Powerpoint presentations no one can stay awake through for longer than 5 minutes. Take smoke breaks and water cooler trips and simulate taking a drag while complaining pitifully about your miserable worker drone existence with others. Literally flush your paycheck down the Wiitoilet by paying bills you will never see the end of. It’s all about the accurate experience, and WiiWork will bring it.
WiiPost – Point at the forum posts on the screen and come up with a highly original response using a mixture of the words “lol”, “ur”, “noob”, and “learn2″, among others! Start a Wiiforum war with your friends and click incessantly on a thread in a desperate attempt to build up attention whoring points for your virtual forum audience. Complete this online experience by uploading pictures of yourself simulating suicide while posting “tl;dr” to every post over 3 sentences. Complete the forum experience you’re used to, and bring it to the Wii.
and of course…
WiiSuck – bringing the Wii to a broader, older audience for endless enjoyment and surprise.
It’s only a matter of time, folks. The possibilities are endless. Get ready.
July 17, 2008
Cutting Class(es)
Original comic:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/7/14
I gotta say, Penny Arcade really took a stride forward in relieving the aches and pains of many a Warhammer Online gamer a couple days ago. And to think, Candymancers could have brought joy and love to the Warhammer world for about 5 seconds before being brutally mutilated by swords, axes, and clubs. And that’s when their enemies would get their turn.
In some ways, I can understand if you really wanted to play that one class that got cut. If you were deadset on playing a smelly green orc with a giant blade that was uglier than the Elephant Man, I still think you should take heart, because your remaining choices for melee – a horridly mutated abomination only a mom could love and a hot chick that could cut you faster than you could your own wrists, aren’t that bad. You’ll still do lots of damage while cackling with glee. You’ll still probably be called overpowered by healers who only know how to mash the button to heal others and not themselves. And you’ll still get to run up and smash your fingers on a single key in a semblance of skill. It’s not that bad.
There were tank classes that got cut too. Sure, you might get a choice between being too short and too drunk or being too tall and too prissy, but if you do your job, no one’s going to give a crap. Your healers will thank you. Being broken up isn’t going to help – and who knows, the class that you were planning to play that got cut might just be replaced by a Chaos World Crusher at some point.
I mean, I’m gonna play one of those healer support classes, and you don’t see me getting all torn up. There would be a real rational way I’d respond if healer classes were being cut. I’d think of a real nice, measured response to write, and I’d slowly count to 10. I’d think about bunnies and skies and happy things like having a cold beer on a hot summer day.
Then I’d calmly crumple the response up and just fly to Mythic HQ to plead my case. I’d submit a little petition and I’d talk in hushed tones with the developers about how to fix the problem.
And that’s when I’d drop the molotov cocktails in the office.
See? It’s all in the communication.
July 16, 2008
Positively Quickie Post #1
…for when I miss an update, of course.
Reason #32423 for knowing you are having fun in a beta test:
You glance at the time, see 4:30pm, then blink and it’s midnight.
July 15, 2008
Game Sequel Bonanza
The other day, I just got done beating a game.
Yeah, normally this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. I mean, people beat games all the time. If they had some kind of thing that they use in those serious commercials where they say something like “someone eats a baby every 5 seconds”, then a game would probably be beaten every 2 seconds.
I realized, however, when I beat this game, that it was the 6th game in the series.
6th. Some movie series don’t even get to 6, much less games. Hell, some tv series don’t even get to 6 episodes. Yet there are some series out there that just keep going and going and going.
Still, I gotta say, it’s not that bad. I mean, to be able to sell people on the same gameplay over and over and over again – that has to be impressive. Heck, in being able to sell someone on publishing the same stuff and repackaging it that many times it’s impressive.
Best of all, it’s impressive that players like me keep buying a game that gets played with the same stuff. I mean, if it wasn’t for all the sheep that were out there that were suckered into buying the games, there wouldn’t be a case to keep making them, right?
That being said, it was fun playing the same battles for the 6th time. They always add something that is partly new or subtle, like being able to attack with a kick instead of a punch, or adding in just one more character that is playable, even if it is the same as someone else with a different palette. It can’t be that bad, right? And it’s consistent too. You always know what you’re getting. It’s like having pizza every day. It’s good right? It’s not like it has to change, right?
Hm. I can’t wait for that 7th game to come out now.
July 14, 2008
Developer Blues
You know, as someone who’s been playing a lot of games since they were a wee little one, I have to say that, especially with the advent of the Internet, developers for games really must feel like throwing themselves out a window.
I mean, think about it. You make or design a game, put hours upon hours into it, work all-nighters on very little sleep to deliver content. You put your passion, your life, your paycheck on the line to make something really great. You look proudly on the printed box, or the programming you’ve done, or whatever you’ve been responsible for, and you gingerly, but eagerly put it on the store shelf beaming with pride at the fruits of your labor.
And then within minutes of purchase, some dude titled GodlySephiroth4543 who probably has the spelling of a 6 year old and the brain of a 2 year old, has taken a dump all over it on some forum or blog. Worse yet, Mr. Final Fantasy VII obsessive has a slew of people in the angry mob who agree with him, and brutally throw down your precious little title from the shelves and rip it apart like a bunch of vultures, all the while saying, with their barely out-of-high-school degrees, that they could do better.
Why you don’t see many news stories of “game developer goes on rampage, kills XBox Live gamers” is beyond me. These guys and gals must have ice running in their veins. But I’m sure that even the most steely of developers feels at least one bad bummer of a day. That’s where Overly Positive and their patented Big Boost Bullet List come into play!
Don’t worry, developers, because:
- One day, you could be the boss – After years of putting your nose to the grindstone like the one in the helpful picture, as well as blood, sweat, tears, and caffeine, one day you could be the CEO or boss, or lead developer. The prospect of being yelled at by millions of people and having your words put through a blender 2000 times and dissected over and over awaits you. At least your lead or manager won’t be able to yell at you.
- You’re just a fad to bash – Today’s generation is pretty damn fickle and they have the attention span of a gnat. Weather the storm, because tomorrow, some other poor schmuck in your business is going to receive all the loving attention of armchair developers who probably know how to eat a corn dog more than how to do your job. Sure, they’ll come back to you at some point, but by then, you’ll have a bottle of alcohol ready to numb yourself to the headache.
- You can always be eccentric – Nothing charms a gamer community away from what could be the little mistakes you make in development (what do you mean the office joke of the naked elf slapping her own ass never got deleted?) like being a little odd. This isn’t hard to do, because you are already half-insane for working in an industry with little appreciation, not enough pay, and more hours than a 7-11. Dress in loud colors. Make sure all your interviews feature you with some crazy trademark, like making out with the camera. Stare blankly at your few fans as if you would devour their soul in the next instant. All of these things can save you the scrutiny and give you a way to “express yourself”.
- Fatal Attraction – For every 5 or 6 smug little bastard who decides to photoshop themselves literally taking a dump on your game box, there’s at least 1 or 2 who will love you dearly and disturbingly know your address, your path to work, and what you had for dinner the last 3 nights. Seek solace in the arms of your few adoring stalkers, but be sure to stiffarm them (delicately) when they take it too far. Note: letting them see you through a webcam all day, at home, in bed, is too far.
Take heart, game developers! There’s light at the end of that tunnel, or perhaps it’s the bright color of that padded room they’re taking you to. Either way, it’ll be away from having to sit in front of a computer for a week straight.
July 13, 2008
YouTube Screwed
So a little while back, G4, among others, reported that Viacom had won a significant victory in the battle against Google-owned YouTube, with a judge ruling that YouTube has to hand over its entire database to Viacom. The database, of course, has al the IPs and all the names, and videos every user has ever watched. Viacom has already issued a statement that they don’t plan on using the information to pursue lawsuits against users, although some people are feeling like some kind of “Order 66″ might be executed one day to arrest everyone who’s ever posted Viacom-video footage.
Now, before everyone starts pulling out equally vague and unfunny references to Star Wars to prove their point, I have to say, the hysterics to this are kind of odd to watch. You’ve got the freedom pundits vowing to fight this to their dying breath in a really bad re-enactment of the last scene in Braveheart. You’ve got the people freaking out over possibly being sued, and you’ve got the people coming up with all kinds of scenarios in which it is not safe to double-click on an email of “grandma pwns mercedes”.
I really think that with this, people really are jumping to conclusions. I mean, this isn’t Big Brother (they already have a reality show for that). This could be a good thing actually. How many times have you pulled a search on Youtube for something decent, only to have to wade through 10,000 crap music videos set to Linkin’ Park, people who have no business being on webcam, and boring tutorials given by 15 year olds? With a bunch of copyright infringement notices, we’ll be soon browsing a cleaner, tidier YouTube, because no one wants to see 5 minute clips of Viacom stuff anyway. Sure, Viacom could end up being dicks, but consider that history is on your side, as the companies are too busy suing to change their business model, ensuring that movies are torrented even more. Why wait for a 10 minute clip on YouTube when you could have the whole thing? YouTube down = torrents up, at least until they find a way to sue a decentralized network of geeky kids sitting at their overpowered machines paid for by their parents.
Besides, none of you reading this has ever clicked on that one clip titled “horse impregnates Paris Hilton” anyway….or can at least explain it away by saying “I was really looking for a Britney Spears video”. You’ve got nothing to hide. So stop freaking, out, sit back, and enjoy the show. Just not on YouTube.
July 12, 2008
It’s the End of the Gaming World as we Know it
In another way of feeling like I have some kind of masochistic sense of duty to the Internet, I’m a forum moderator by some trade. I’ve done moderation for forums for a number of years, ranigng from anime sites to event sites, to gaming. Perhaps part of the reason why I’m just so damn sunny is because I had the rage melted out of me years ago by too many interesting contributions from the community, such as posts that start and end with “this sucks, I want to kill myself”. When you see enough of that, you cope.
One of the best parts of the job is dealing with an “End of the World” thread. You surely have seen the type. They’re most common on gaming forums and are basically a reaction to an announcement or bit of news. The way these people were posting, you’d think someone came to their house, stole their crap, peed in their cereal, and made them eat it.
I’ve got one shining example that dares to reach 100 pages:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43941
As a moderator, I’m obligated to crush their hopes and dreams under my rule-enforcing boot, but why do that when I can simply show them the silver lining in the cloud? That silver lining, my friends, is the banhammer.
I’m doing people a great favor by banning them for comments that they wouldn’t dare say to anyone’s face. Banhammers allow me to tell people that there’s a whole new wide world out there beyond the forum whoring you do. Bans, in their own sweet affectionate way, tell people they love them, because they care about people enough to make them IRL successful. Bans also expand people’s horizons. I mean, why wouldn’t someone find another community they can contribute to with their productive discussion titled “how I will kill the game developer on a budget”?
Bans help other people realize is not socially acceptable in other places. Sure, they may stumble through with all the bedside manner of a bar bouncer online, but a good, solid ban will take them to places they would never have dreamed of doing while making boring contribusions, like to the bathroom, the kitchen, and the other computer sitting on their desk with all their porn on it. Far be it from me to deny you your fantasy of sleeping with both Scarlett Johannsen and Christina Aguilera at the same time, so bans help that along as well.
So help us, help them, and report those bans. You’ll be saving lives.
July 11, 2008
Cosplay Care
Those of you who have actually made the really awesome committment to, you know, not be an anti-social shutin and go outside once in a while must have an idea of what cosplay is. If you’ve ever been to one of those geek conventions out there where you actually meet all those truly obsessive people who post 1200 times a day on forums, you know it’s costuming by fans, for fans.
Sure, some of these cosplayers have more business filling a potato sack rather than a costume of someone 8 sizes smaller than them, but hey, you have to be positive and give them some props for being bold enough to dress for success. It’s good to know that there are some geekish folks out there who might actually be confident enough not to give a shit about the way they look. More power to you, hairy guy in schoolgirl outfit!
If you’ve ever felt the need to get more pictures with people in two days than you’ve had in a lifetime, and to be the darling of much entertainment over Flickr, then you’d better be prepared. We’re here to make sure that you’re completely prepared for the wholesome process of being stalked by creepy fanboys with cameras and grease for hair.
Don’t forget the following:
- Attention-Getting Signage – Nothing says “attention” more than a sign. Make sure you use only black marker, write in all caps, and simulate the spelling of a 6-year old for maximum exposure. Don’t forget to throw in a buzzword like “hugz”, “kisses”, or a phrase like “I Lick Anyone Dressed Like a Ninja”
- Unnecessarily Large Props - There’s no way you’re going to ever be able to get an actual weapon that looks like it could slice or blow up a city block. So the next best thing is to make it yourself. Make your character’s weapon of choice using PVC pipe, sheet metal, or, in a pinch, cardboard or even hotel room items. Be sure to wave it around to the point of knocking over small children and cart-pushing vendors, because safety is second to you looking like you could get in one good blow before being arrested.
- Assets – You know, you might not have been dealt a good hand in the looks department, but this is all about working with what you have, right? Got hair longer than sin because you refuse to cut it? I hear there’s this “Sephiroth” guy you can be who somehow gets all the chicks despite having mommy issues. What about skin that hasn’t seen sun on it since your last grocery run for instant ramen and caffeine? Be someone moody, because teenagers like moody. Got a battleship for an ass? Shake that moneymaker by playing Jabba the Hutt or your favorite anime character before Jenny Craig. This is all about being adaptive, people.
- Febreze – Because apparently showering is optional for some, and a little spritz will get you seemingly rosy fresh all day. Just don’t let anyone who talks to you get downwind of you.
Armed with this and many more “protips” you can find on communities of people who feed on the drama of living a fantasy as a game or anime character, you can’t lose! Now go out there, and make us proud by making as many “normal” people stare at you and shake their heads in disbelief as possible.
July 9, 2008
Make Love, not Console War
You know, if there’s one thing that burns people up when it comes to talking about gaming, it’s the infamous “console war”. Let’s face it, if you thought conflict in that unimportant realm called “the real world” was bad, well, even thousands of years of cultural, racial, and governmental tension and strife can’t beat two or three people going at each other in a battle for console supremacy. The way people defend and attack consoles they love and hate, you’d think that they were stranded in the mountains with nothing to eat but each other. It’s that great, kids.
Console wars have been happening ever since I was a wee person, when Nintendo and Sega squared off in 8-bit and 16-bit duels, and Atari become the sad little prom date that was pushed aside for the hot cheerleaders. No one really seems to come to any kind of consensus or even any semblance of what you might call rational behavior, but here at OP, we strive to bring a little sunshine into your lives. So with that, here’s some stuff to remember:
- It’s all the same anyway - There’s a reason why I chose a Ryu vs. Ken image for this entry. I mean, come on, they TRIED to make Ryu and Ken different besides being a palette swap, but they’re really the same thing packaged two different ways. Ever get into a Ryu vs. Ken fight where the players did nothing but Hadouken each other for most of the match? That’s what console wars are like. Console warriors unite for you have something in common – you all spend 20 hours out of the day playing games and the remaining 4 hours bitching on forums. Racial divides have been settled just by finding common ground, and this is it!
- Unite against a common evil - People grokking their favorite consoles and wasting time attacking each other are forgetting that there is at least one common element they can agree and focus their collective, misguided hatred towards, and that’s PC Gaming. Ever play a real-time strategy game and spend the entire time beating the snot out of a couple opponents, only to lose to that quiet motherfucker who built up a juggernaut of destruction that steamrolls all of you? That’s what PC gaming is to the console wars. C’mon guys – even the Autobots and Decepticons worked together at SOME point against a common threat. If it works for the Transformers, it can work for you.
…and finally…
- You’re not gaming if you’re fighting – This is all about priorities, people. What would you rather do – get the high score in the Halo 3 leaderboards so you can post pictures of your wang in 1600 x 1200 on MySpace and declare yourself, literally, the biggest cock on the Internet, or flame someone for liking a console you think sucks? Yeah, that’s what I thought. If you’re going to be an attention whore, you might as well do it right.
So next time you think you’re going to post something about why the fans of the consoles you hate deserve to have their vacant heads put into a blender, pull back. You just might figure out some kind of meaning in lives that otherwise have none.